An impulse based sensor for medical sensing applications

This work designs a non-coherent impulse based-transceiver operating in a frequency range of 3.1–10.6GHz for medical sensing applications. The transmitter consists of an ON/OFF Keying data modulator, a Gaussian pulse generator, and a variable gain amplifier to control the transmitting pulse level. The receiver consists of an LNA, a multiplier, an integrator, and a comparator. The IC is designed using 0.18μm CMOS technology with a supply voltage of 1.8V. The simulated pulse width is 0.2ns and the maximum pulse rate is over 1GHz. A heart motion detection performance was demonstrated with high precision for an overall power consumption of 40mW. This design can also be modified to be used in wireless UWB data communications to build a complete low power wireless sensor node.